Chapter 71: Confiscating the Households

After receiving the assurance that they would only confiscate property and not kill anyone, Lin Wan'er silently stepped forward to clear away the bowls and chopsticks.

As she was about to leave, she seemed to want to stop and say something, but between breaths she lightly bit her thin lip, pushed open the door, and left.

After the door closed behind her, Zhou Shixiang turned his head to look at the oil lamp on the table. The wick had already burned halfway down, and only half the kerosene remained inside.

As the flame flickered, his fingers tapped lightly on the table. After a long while, a heavy thud sounded from the tabletop.

In the early hours before dawn, the Taiping Army first arrived at the home of Wu Qingde, who had once served as a Messenger in the Office of Transmission under the Hongguang court.

After the squad leader Ge Yi leading the detachment saw Wu Qingde, he waved an official document before his eyes, then ordered the soldiers behind him to rush in and confiscate the household.

Wu Qingde, who had steeled himself to bleed money once more, had never imagined that the Taiping Camp would actually confiscate his home outright.

In great alarm he tried to argue his case, desperately recounting his status as a former Ming official, but the Taiping Camp squad leader paid no heed whatsoever to this fifth-rank Messenger of the Hongguang court.

Rolling up his sleeves, the man took the lead in the search and seizure himself.

When a xiucai meets a soldier, reason cannot be made clear.

Before his eyes, Taiping Army soldiers were ransacking his home like bandits; in his ears were the startled cries of his household's womenfolk, interspersed with the angry shouts of the soldiers. Wu Qingde's pent-up fury attacked his heart, and he fainted dead away.

With his collapse, the Wu family, young and old alike, fell into even greater panic, wailing and weeping in a single chorus.

The same scene was unfolding simultaneously at the home of Qi Yuantai, a secretary in the Nanjing Ministry of Works; at the home of Zhang Changquan, a vice prefect of Huai'an Prefecture; at the Datong Rice Shop Lin family; at the Taida Cloth Shop Yang family; and at the Zhao family, the largest landlords in Luoding.

Each household's reaction, however, was not quite the same.

Qi Yuantai seemed to have long known the Taiping Camp would do this. After the soldiers entered, he withdrew to a corner with his entire family, old and young, not daring to utter a single word the whole time, and none of his family dared curse or shout either.

He even had his steward take the keys to all the storerooms, large and small, and follow the Taiping Army, opening whatever door they wanted opened. One could say he could not have cooperated more.

From beginning to end, Qi Yuantai maintained the same expression—neither pleased nor angry—though the chill in his eyes never once disappeared.

Zhang Changquan, bedridden with a touch of wind-chill, was so frightened when he heard the Taiping Camp had arrived that he hid under the bed.

His concubine, Lady Wu, could not find him and assumed the master had taken his own life by jumping into the well, so she wailed in terror. After Zhang Changquan was dragged out from under the bed by the Taiping Army, Lady Wu rushed forward and clung to him, still sobbing loudly.

The Yang family of the Taida Cloth Shop and the great landlord Zhao family showed a bit more nerve, but only to the extent of verbal reproach and cursing; they dared not make any move, allowing the Taiping Army to strip their homes of grain and valuables.

Some women of the two households tried to hide their gold, silver, and fine belongings, but after one woman was publicly stripped of her skirt and a small packet of gold and silver clamped between her thighs fell out, none of the women dared hide anything anymore.

They obediently handed their things over, lest they be exposed naked before the crowd.

As for the violence that might occur during the confiscations, Zhou Shixiang was already prepared. Apart from forbidding wanton killing and the rape of women, everything else was tolerable.

Of course, an army with strict discipline was what he dreamed of, but he would never pursue that dream while he could not even solve the problem of feeding and clothing his soldiers.

The one person who made everyone "see him in a new light" was Lin Wanfu, who was usually mocked by all.

Before the Taiping Army had even reached his house, he threw his gates wide open, knelt on the ground with his entire family, old and young, and presented the account books and keys to Zhao Sihai, who had come to conduct the seizure.

He said he was willing to bring his whole family to join the Taiping Camp and begged the Taiping Camp to take them in. The old man also said he was willing to devote his remaining years to the restoration of the Great Ming, and so on.

Such a declaration left Zhao Sihai rather embarrassed, and he stepped forward to help him up. After Lin Wanfu rose, he flattered Zhao Sihai at length, and in the end actually insisted on dragging Zhao Sihai inside to taste some fine Jiangnan tea.

The result was that host and guest both enjoyed themselves thoroughly, and Lin Wanfu transformed in the blink of an eye into a member of the Taiping Camp. As for his family property—well, it would remain at his home for the time being and be inventoried later.

When word of this reached Zhou Shixiang, he did not know whether to laugh or cry. Since the man's daughter was at his side, he found it awkward to handle the matter himself, so he passed it to Song Xianggong to deal with.

The Taiping Camp's sweeping confiscations from the gentry and great households caused no small commotion in the city. Some clapped and cheered; others were stricken with fear and unease.

Compared with the relatively mild confiscations directed at the gentry and great households, the Taiping Camp used thunderbolt measures against those in Luoding city who had secretly colluded with the Qing army.

Although Zhou Shixiang did not know that Lu Changyuan had once sent someone to Deqing with a secret report, over the past two days Song Xianggong had recounted to him one by one the small moves Lu Changyuan and his associates had made in the city.

Though these small moves could not prove that Lu Changyuan and the others were colluding with the Qing army, nor that he was plotting rebellion, Zhou Shixiang still sentenced Lu Changyuan and the others to death, holding to the ruthless notion of "better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one slip by."

Lu Changyuan was unwilling to die meekly. He led a dozen or so men in armed resistance, but they were surrounded in his rear courtyard. After a bout of hacking and slashing, all of them lay dead in the yard.

By daybreak, the overall situation was settled.

Since ancient times, those capable of organizing rebellion have mostly been people of local standing and status, especially the gentry and great households.

Such people control a certain amount of money and grain, and combined with the weight they carry in the eyes of the common folk, a single call from them can summon not exactly a cloud of followers, but still a considerable number—and with a little organization, that becomes a rebel force.

But now the six gentry households headed by Qi Yuantai had been dealt with by the Taiping Camp, and Lu Changyuan and the others lurking in the yamen had been executed. No matter how many commoners remained in Luoding, they could no longer pose a threat to the Taiping Camp.

A clod of earth is far stronger than a plate of loose sand.

All morning long, the Taiping Camp was busy transporting the money and grain seized from the six households to the rear camp in the eastern part of the city.

Quite unlike the previous complaints of hardship these six households had made to Song Xianggong, the total amount of money and grain confiscated from their homes was more than twice what they had already donated.

This infuriated Song Xianggong so much that he exclaimed the confiscation had been well done—truly, the rich are heartless and no merchant is without cunning.

No one knew how Lin Wanfu managed it, but when Zhou Shixiang saw him again, he was already the bookkeeper of the public treasury, abacus in hand, managing the Taiping Camp's accounts with two shop hands from his own household.

Zhou Shixiang asked Song Xianggong why he had put this Lin Wanfu in charge of the accounts. This man surnamed Lin, for the sake of his own interests, had even been willing to sell his own daughter—his character could not be called anything but base.

Using such a man to keep the accounts was surely inappropriate. Song Xianggong's reply—"make full use of every material, and every man"—left him with nothing to say.

On reflection, it made sense: Lin Wanfu had managed to build up the Datong Rice Shop in a poor and harsh place like Luoding, and through years of war and disaster his grain business had continued without interruption. Whether under Ming or Qing, the Lin family had survived.

That alone showed Lin Wanfu was not entirely worthless. Putting him in charge of the accounts was not out of the question, and perhaps in the future they would even need to rely on his business skills to procure grain and fodder for the Taiping Camp.

The prefectural yamen's proclamation was posted in the afternoon. It demanded that all the city's residents "voluntarily" join the Taiping Camp, so as to contribute to the restoration of the Great Ming.